Classic Poem

I knew a maid; her form and face
Were lily-slender, lily-fair;
Hers was a wild unconscious grace,
A ruddy-golden crown of hair.

Thro' those child-eyes unchecked, untamed,
The happy thoughts transparent flew,
Yet some pathetic touch had tamed
To gentler grey their Irish blue.

So from her oak a Dryad leant
To look, with wondering glance and gay,
Where Jove, uncrowned and kingly, went
With Maia down the woodland way.

Their glory lit the amorous air;
The golden touched the Olympian head;
But Zephyr o'er Cyllene bare
That secret the Immortals said.

The nymph they saw not, passing nigh;
She melted in her leafy screen;
But from the boughs that seemed to sigh
A dewdrop trembled on the green.

That nymph her oak for aye must hold;
The girl has life and hope, and she
Shall hear one day the secret told,
And roam herself in Arcady.

I see her still; her cheek aglow,
Her gaze upon the future bent;
As one who through the world will go
Beloved, bewitching, innocent.

A H , no more questions, no more fears,
But let us at the end have rest;
Shed if thou wilt the unfallen tears,
But shed them on my breast.
Who guesses what the unfathomed years
May bear of life and love and woe?
Not in our eyes nor to our ears
Those things are plain to know.

We only feel that side by side
Each loving shoulder leans on each,
With looks too precious to divide
By fragmentary speech.
Nor this nor aught can long abide,
But passes, passes like to-day,
Till each shall fare without a guide
The uncompanioned way.

Who to the grave child-eyes could teach
Unknown Love's tremor and his play;
The silences that crown his speech,
His bitter-sweet and mourning way?

Thro' those dark deeps I saw him rise,
And stir the spirit's soft control,
And shake the imaged world that lies
Fair on the mirror of her soul.

How oft thro' woodlands undefiled
She rode amid the spring-tide's stir!
Fierce creatures at her touch were mild
And dumb things spake for love of her.

Then all at once her heart would beat,
And from her gaze the gladness died;
She drew the rein, before her feet
The sunset vales lay glorified.

Alone and ardent, fair and young,
O woman smit with woman's pain!
O song thro' all her being sung
Of Love delaying, Love in vain!

That voiceless passion Love had heard,
Denied it strangely, strangely gave;
Sighed in a smile and sent my bird
Bright-plumaged o'er the sundering wave.

As though the soul of all things wild,
The soul of all things brave and free,
Came in the likeness of a child
From tossing forests over-sea;

And softly to my bosom stole,
And o'er my heart in freshness blew,
Until that living loving soul
Became my life, my love anew.